Sunday, June 29, 2014

Sooo….I forgot my baby once. I did. In the hustle and bustle of getting out the door to get my 4 year old to preschool on time I forgot my baby. I had a habit of loading the baby into his carrier car seat and sitting him on the table by the door so he would be safe and I could get my 4yr old and 2yr old in the car in the garage. This particular morning must have been extra crazy because I was down the street getting ready to turn out of the neighborhood before I realized the baby was not in the car! Why am I telling everyone this now, you ask?!? Because I want to ask, does that fact make me a horrible monster… a bad parent? I am not asking because I actually need an answer to that question. I know the answer to that question. I know the answer without a single doubt in my mind. I am a good parent. Some days I am a really good parent! Am I perfect? VERY far from it!! I make mistakes all the time. It is only by the grace of God that I left my baby on my dining room table and not in a hot car. In the last several weeks, I have seen post after post about tragic deaths resulting from parents forgetting their baby in a hot car. And yes, it is horrific. It is painful to read. It is a nightmare in real life. But may I suggest the majority of the parents in these stories are also good parents. Good parents that love their babies with all of their heart. Parents that made a terrible mistake and will have to live with the consequences for the rest of their life. It seems, after reading comment after comment on these posts that I am somewhat in the minority with my thinking on this. I am shocked by the amount of people lashing out at these parents. Making comments such as “I could NEVER forget my precious baby”. “He/she is a monster”. “He/she should be left in a hot car to die just like that poor baby”. I get it. We are human. We have a need to place blame. And if you come across a case where someone says, “yep, I strapped my baby in and left them in the car because I wanted them to die” then by all means carry on with your comments. Punish them to the full extent of the law. But in the majority of these cases, that is not the way it happened. If we just have to find someone/thing to blame I would argue that we are living in a world that is moving so fast it is nearly impossible to keep up. We are all struggling to keep our heads above water. The pressures of work, the economy, personal financial stability. Constantly being bombarded with everyone’s opinions on how you raise your children, what kind of food you eat, how “green” you are. In this day of social media it is almost impossible to escape it. We all end up second guessing every decision we make. Our minds never turn off. They never get a break. And that, my friend, leads to nothing good. Am I saying that social media has to go? No. I would be kidding myself if I thought that were even a possibility at this point. And it is not all bad. Many good things come from it. We just need to find a balance. Quit using it as an outlet to attack already hurting people as in cases like these tragic deaths. Your hateful comments won’t bring these babies back. Your finger pointing and “I would never” declarations won’t keep this kind of thing from happening. What does help? People who share ideas that might help prevent these types of accidents. Like the one that says to take off your left shoe and put it in the back seat with the baby when you drive with your child. Or the one that suggests you tie a string from your seat belt to the car door when you have your baby in the back so that in order to get out of the car you have to untie the string and consequently, remember your child. I am not sure why I felt the need to write this blog. But it has been stirring in me for several days. I should probably just stay away from the comment sections of posts like these because I always leave the post disappointed in the human race and lack of compassion we have as a people. We can do better, friends. We can be better. We can act and react in love instead of judgment. We can come beside people and encourage them and build them up instead of tearing them down in their weakest moments. “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” Ephesians 4:29